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While I like Nagisa and consider her a good character (seriously, Clannad doesn't really have bad characters at all), but I have a lot of issues with her and how she affected the story in various ways.
My biggest beef is that she's like the ultimate wish-fulfillment fantasy for the average Japanese male. She's an Ill Girl. She's adorable--in both personality and appearance. She's soft-spoken. She's demure (though, she does learn to be stubborn through her Character Development). She's shy and very, very moe. She blames herself for everything and is self-conscious and overly modest to the point of shattering suspension of disbelief. She's obnoxiously chaste (Tomoya falls into this bizarre category as well).
However, through the various things she goes through, and thanks to Tomoya's support in the first season, Nagisa evolves from a vapid, useless bit of fluff into a much more confident and strong young woman.
Seriously, at first, I hated her. I kept wishing Tomoya would start chasing Kyou or Tomoyo around instead of her. Kyou has loads of confidence and her personality is very strong; Tomoyo exudes an air of cool, collected competence. Both of them felt like better people, but as the series progressed and Nagisa underwent a metric asston of character development, I started liking her a lot more--and started cheering her on more and more.
In After Story, Nagisa was like a totally different character. She was just so much stronger of mind and personality it was almost eerie. I think the two major turning points for Nagisa... completing her play and overcoming her self-imposed guilt about derailing her parents' dreams, and hearing Tomoya confess to her... those two things drove her character development into overdrive.
Now that I've finished the series, I find that I'm really fond of Nagisa. I had this same sort of experience with another show and another character--with Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, at first I hated Teana Lanster--typical tsundere twintail girl, annoying and stupid. But as the show progressed and she received two thousand tons of character development, by the time I finished watching it, Teana became my favorite character out of the entire third season cast.
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